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HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY? Send your thoughts to editor@bendsource.com.

Letters must be received by noon Friday for inclusion in the following week’s paper. Please limit letters to 250 words. Submission does not guarantee publication. Opinions printed here do not constitute an editorial endorsement of said opinions.

Letter of the week receives $5 to Palate!

RE: TRIPPING OVER THE DETAILS NEWS, 7/14

Congrats to 25 years – I moved here well before you guys or KPOV arrived which was long overdue.

I want to respond to the two articles regarding psilocybin. While yes it was voted to make it legal, there still is more work that needs to happen regarding place, who can legally administer it, etc. – It is a process! The City established an advisory committee when legalization of marijuana came into place. So here we go again with the County Commissioners looking at opting out, which they did initially with marijuana and then years later fought to opt back in.

The other article about the “Proto-Psilocybin” does concern me. Really psychedelic guides???? And they are qualified how?

“Nobody on our team is a licensed mental health professional.” Personally, they should be worried about the issue of liability. Who then monitors how much a client administers to themselves, as well as the source of the psilocybin.

Back in the day, and I’m aging myself, when Acid was “clean,” to do your trip you maybe had someone who was the “sober” person to make sure everyone was safe. That being said, you decided what your “trip” was going to be, not someone else defining that for you. That being said, once you experienced a bad trip due to poor quality that was it—at best for me.

I think people need to tread carefully with this idea of someone, not qualified to “guide you” with your trip/experience. Just saying.

—Mary Fleischmann, retired and ongoing hippie

A HOME ENERGY SCORE IS A WIN-WIN FOR BEND

A recent letter to the Source Weekly mentioned that the mandatory Home Energy Score (HES) program being considered by the City Council was, in their words, “superfluous.” The home seller could “provide 12 months of utility bills which show the actual energy costs of operating the home.” This is not the case.

In reality, sharing a year’s worth of utility bills with potential buyers only reveals how the previous occupants used their home relative to energy and has nothing to do with measuring the home’s energy efficiency.

The HES uses a score ranging from 1 to 10 where a 10 represents the most energy efficient homes (with a five being average). The scoring criteria are based upon a calculation of a variety of measurements of a home’s structure and mechanical systems such as its insulation level, windows, heating system, cooling system, the hot water system, among other features. These criteria reflect the actual efficiency and cost of energy in the home.

The Oregon cities of Milwaukie, Hillsboro and Portland all have mandatory Home Energy Score programs in place. Currently, the cities of Corvallis, Eugene, Gresham, and Hood River are in various stages of adopting Home Energy Score policies (Oregon Dept. of Energy). Simply put, the Home Energy Score system adds transparency and credibility to the information needed when purchasing a home, while moving Bend towards a cleaner and healthier community. It is a win-win deal.

Research Home Energy Score: US Dept. of Energy, Oregon Dept. of Energy and Earth Advantage.

—Russ Donnelly

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E-BIKES AND TRAFFIC CIRCLES

Please forgive me as I am having a hard time understanding this. If I understand correctly a crosswalk is for walking, it is not for riding bikes, scooters, cars, motorcycles etc. Foot traffic is for crosswalks and sidewalks. I’m pretty sure this is the law somewhere? (Correction: See editor’s note below.) It is also my understanding from the latest article in the news that electrically powered bicycles should not be operated by people under the age of 16. Obviously neither of these laws are being enforced, I would think that the least that the police department and city could do would be to educate the public. I would think one of the worst things that the city could do would be to have the city engineering department complete the newest traffic circle with a bicycle lane that impedes the flow of traffic just as if a bicycle rode on the crosswalk.

I feel I am just as guilty as everybody else, my son and I built an electric powered mini bike as a project that he could ride to school. He has not been riding it, and I did not realize that he needed to be 16. My apologies.

I was at a friend’s BBQ recently and there were four adolescents under the age of 16 all sporting road rash from crashing on their e-bikes.

I’m sure everybody here reading this has come across someone on a bicycle, E bike, E scooter, or even their feet that don’t even know how to navigate our converging paths.

City of Bend leadership and police department, can you please educate the public?

—Kit Blackwelder

Letter of the Week:

Kit: Thanks for your letter. You get the Palate gift card! Regarding bikes on the sidewalk: According to the City of Bend code, updated in 2010:

“Bicycles shall not be ridden on a sidewalk in the Downtown District described in section 6.190 or in the Centennial Parking Garage.” (That goes for skateboards, scooters and roller skates, too.)

Beyond that, we double-checked with the City, and there’s no restriction on riding bikes on the sidewalk outside of downtown—but e-bikes are not allowed on sidewalks within the city. And until Bend has more protected lanes that help promote safe divisions between cars and bikes, the not-so-busy sidewalk next to the busy street seems like a pretty good place to be for those more cautious riders.

—Nicole Vulcan